A third of all customer records currently held by UK franchised dealerships are inaccurate or incomplete, potentially preventing them from exploiting a surge of MOT and service work.

New research conducted by direct and digital marketing specialists at Marketing Delivery has indicated that the workshop opportunity presented to workshops three years after 2016's then-record registrations could be lost because of administrative shortcomings.

Marketing Delivery’s managing director, Jeremy Evans, said: “New car registration might be weakening in 2019, but this year marks ‘peak MOT’ for workshops, with more tests expected to be carried out than at any other time in history.”

Marketing Delivery carried out a nationwide analysis of 47,500 anonymised customer records and found that 11% of all customer records are missing a mobile number, while 18% don’t include an email address.

Unfortunately, 7% of customer records have a missing ‘due date’ for customer car MOTs, although this figure is as high as 34% among selected dealers with the worst record-keeping.

Vehicle servicing ‘due dates’ are missing or erroneous in 11% of all records, with the worst performers lacking accurate data in up to 40% of all cases.

The analysis will be encouraging for many dealers, however, with two-thirds (66%) of all customer records now featuring an email address and phone number, as well as accurate due dates for MOTs and scheduled servicing work.

“It is imperative that franchised and independent businesses ensure their customer records are up-to-date, if they exploit this unique opportunity,” said Evans.

“Workshops that gain consent from a customer to contact them via email immediately put themselves in contention to capture a greater share of the available service and MOT work.

“Without this data, or by failing to list an accurate MOT ‘due date’ on a customer’s record, there is every chance that a customer will look elsewhere for any work they may need carried out on their vehicle.”